Today 3 major events happen: Saul is spared, Samuel dies, and David acquires more wives.
1) Now David and his 600 men are hiding out in the wilderness while Saul and his 3,000 men are trying to hunt him down. David demonstrates his trust in the Lord when he has an opportunity to kill Saul while Saul is relieving himself in the cave where David and his men are hiding but David doesn’t kill him. Afterwards, David yells to Saul that he has no desire to kill him, the Lord’s anointed king, and that he will trust the Lord to judge between them. Saul declares that David is more righteous than himself and he has David swear that once he becomes king he will not cut off Saul’s descendants. Saul then goes home but unfortunately not for good as we will read about tomorrow.
2) Samuel dies in today’s reading and all of Israel mourns for him.
3) We meet Nabal, whose name actually means fool. He is a rich big jerk who is married to a wise beautiful wife, Abigail. Nabal harshly refuses to help David and his men, who have been protecting rich Nabal and all his stuff. David lets his anger get the best of him and decides to respond by killing Nabal and all the males in his household. Brave Abigail intercedes and reminds David of what David already knows…to trust the Lord and let Him deal with the fools. Sometimes the Lord will send someone to remind us to trust Him when we are blinded by our emotions. So David responds to her “…blessed is your advice and blessed are you, because you have kept me this day from coming to bloodshed and from avenging myself with my own hand”. Soon after, the Lord strikes Nabal and he dies. David takes Abigail as his wife. He also takes Ahinoam as his wife and we learn that Michal, who is Saul’s daughter and David’s first wife, was given to another man. Keep reading to find out if David gets Michal back.
(1 Samuel 23:13-29, Psalm 54, 1 Samuel 24:1-25:44)
#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching
(Note: God designed marriage to be between one man and one woman. There will be negative consequences that come with having multiple wives and children by multiple wives. We will learn more about this as the Story continues.
“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh.” Mark 10:7-8)
Chronological Bible in Layman's Terms 